Corporate Parenting Plan and Children’s Rights Report 2025

Introduction

This report sets out details of the work we have done and will undertake as a proud Corporate Parent and also in supporting Children’s Rights.  Our most recent report was published in 2023 and we included an action plan as an appendix to the report in July 2024. We have decided to refresh our plan and report to set out some of the important work that we have recently undertaken and also the actions that we will take to ensure that we meet our duties under the newly enacted UNCRC (Incorporation) (Scotland) Act 2024.  We will be publishing our next detailed plan and reports as required by the legislation as soon as is practicable after 31^st March 2026.

We have a number of duties and obligations towards children and young people and those who are Care Experienced. However, we don’t just want to meet our duties, we want to play our part to ensure that they have everything they need to grow up in a healthy and thriving environment.

Under the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014, we are designated as a ‘Corporate Parent’ and are required to publish a report every three years to explain how we fulfil the duties this legislation places on us.

We were previously also required under Part One of the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 to publish a Children’s Rights Report on the steps we have taken to secure better or further effect of the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). The requirement was to report after each three year period. We are now working towards meeting the new requirements of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Incorporation) (Scotland) Act 2024, which has superseded the 2014 duties in relation to Children’s rights.

The legislation allows us to satisfy our duties by publishing relevant information alongside other reports. For us, it makes sense to report on our approach to Corporate Parenting and children’s rights together. Where possible within this report we have set out which actions relate to either Corporate Parenting, Children’s Rights or both.

Our role

The Scottish Parliament has set us one statutory objective:

“to safeguard and promote the interests of current and future tenants of social landlords, people who are or may become homeless, and people who use housing services provided by registered social landlords (RSLs) and local authorities.”

It also gave us statutory functions to achieve our objective. These are the things we must do:

• monitor, assess and report regularly on the performance of social landlords and the governance and financial health of RSLs;
• make regulatory interventions where appropriate; and
• maintain a register of social landlords.

We are a risk-based regulator, and we target our resources at addressing the issues that present the greatest risk to tenants’ and service users’ interests.

You can read more about our how we work and our current strategic priorities in our Strategy. Our Regulatory Framework explains in detail how we regulate social landlords.

We are different in some important ways from many of the other public bodies who are Corporate Parents and who have UNCRC reporting responsibilities. Although we are committed to supporting children and young people and those who are Care Experienced, we don’t provide a direct service and our engagement is mainly with the organisations that we regulate, some of which are themselves Corporate Parents and have children’s rights reporting duties.  Our primary statutory functions and the relatively narrow nature of our role also helps shape our approach to Corporate Parenting and children’s rights. The actions we take are a combination of targeted regulatory activities, awareness raising, information sharing and providing advice. We also collaborate with other organisations in this work wherever possible.

Corporate Parenting

The concept of Corporate Parenting has been embraced in Scotland since the late 1990s and it has actively informed Scottish Government policy since the 2007 report, ‘Looked After Children and Young People: We Can and Must Do Better’. The motivation behind the report was a desire to see a step change in outcomes for Care Experienced people. 

The Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 (the Act) came into effect in April 2015 and established a new legal framework within which public services should work together in support of children, young people and families in Scotland. The Act outlined the Scottish Government’s commitment to making Scotland the best place in the world to grow up.

Scottish Government Statutory Guidance supporting the implementation of the Act states that Corporate Parenting is:

“An organisation’s performance of actions necessary to uphold the rights and safeguard the wellbeing of a looked-after child or care leaver, and through which physical, emotional, spiritual, social and educational development is promoted.”

We are listed as a Corporate Parent under Schedule 4 of the Act. Throughout this plan we use the phrase “Corporate Parent” as is set out by the Act.  However, we recognise that people with experience of care told the Independent Care Review, published in 2020, didn’t favour this term.

What are the duties?

Part 9 of the Act sets out six statutory duties which all Corporate Parents must carry out in support of Care Experienced young people. These are summarised as follows: 

• to be alert to matters which, or which might, adversely affect the wellbeing of people with experience of care;
• to assess the needs of people with experience of care for any services or support provided;
• to promote the interests of people with experience of care;
• to seek to provide people with experience of care with opportunities to promote their wellbeing;
• to take such actions as we consider appropriate to help people with experience of care to:
  • access opportunities provided to promote their wellbeing
  • make use of services and access support provided.
• to take other appropriate action for the purposes of improving the way in which we exercise our functions in relation to people with experience of care.

Under the Act we are also required to:

• Prepare and publish a plan for how we propose to fulfil our Corporate Parenting responsibilities and keep the plan under review;
• Collaborate with other Corporate Parents when exercising our Corporate Parenting responsibilities and where this would safeguard or promote the wellbeing of people with experience of care.

Defining ‘Care Experience’.

The advocacy organisation Who Cares? Scotland advises that the term “Care Experienced” refers to anyone who is currently in care or has been for any length of time regardless of their age.  This care may have been provided in many different settings including:

• Kinship Care – Living with a relative who is not your mum or dad
• Looked After at Home – With the help of Social Work
• Residential Care – Living in a residential home or school
• Foster Care – Living with foster carers
• Secure Care - Living in a secure accommodation
• Adoption – Living with adoptive parents

We recognise that we have a statutory responsibility to report formally within the limits of the legally defined terms, and in general this means that our duties are in relation to those aged 26 and under.  However, in line with the approach taken by other Corporate Parents, wherever possible we will uphold our responsibilities as a Corporate Parent to the wider group of all Care Experienced people, rather than limit it to just those who meet the legal definition of ‘looked after’ or ‘care leaver’.  We are also awaiting the outcome of the recent Scottish Government consultation which sought views on the need for a universal definition of ‘Care Experience’. We will look to incorporate any new definitions in the next iteration of our Corporate Parenting Plan and Children’s Rights Report, due to be published in 2026.

Homelessness and Access to Housing

We know that access to social housing and homelessness services are important issues for many Care Experienced people.  The recent ‘Lifelong Rights Campaign – Housing Issue Paper’ from Who Cares? Scotland highlighted that Care Experienced people are at a greater risk of falling into repeat homelessness for a range of reasons including a lack of support, lack of options for young people to return to care and being unable to rely on a family support network. The report also showed that homelessness was one of the largest areas for which Care Experienced people sought advocacy support from Who Cares? Scotland. 37% of all housing advocacy issues raised were around homelessness. 

Through our regulatory work we focus on homelessness to give us assurance that local authorities are meeting demand and providing help, advice and accommodation to vulnerable people who are or who may become homeless. 

Although we do not target our regulatory activities specifically at those with Care Experience, our work to monitor service quality, alongside our targeted, thematic work in areas such as homelessness shines a light on homeless and tenancy services that are important to people who are Care Experienced.

In early 2023 we published a Thematic Review of our work on the services provided by councils to help people experiencing homelessness. Further information on this work can be found below in the Children’s Rights section of this report.

The Promise

We recognise that we have a role to play in upholding ‘The Promise’ that was made on 5^th February 2020 to ensure that they Scotland’s children grow up loved, safe and respected. The Plan 24-30 was published by the organisation The Promise Scotland in June 2024 and sets out who needs to do what, by when to keep the Promise by 2030. It is organised around the five foundations of the Promise: voice, family, care, people, and scaffolding.

As set out above, we don’t provide a direct service and our engagement is mainly with organisations that we regulate.  The actions that we take are a combination of targeted regulatory activities, awareness raising, information sharing and providing advice. We also collaborate with other organisations in this work wherever possible. This is the approach that we will continue with to ensure that we can play our part in upholding The Promise.

Progress to date

As well as the work outlined above, the actions we have taken over the past few years in our role as a Corporate Parent include:

• We have developed and published a new action plan to support our work in relation to Corporate Parenting and The Promise.
• As part of the programme of research of our National Panel of Tenants and Service Users, we have explored the experiences and priorities of people who have used local authorities’ homelessness services. We published reports with service users’ feedback in 2023 and in 2024. You can read these reports on the National Panel section of our website.
• We have raised awareness of our Corporate Parenting duties with staff, highlighting particular events such as Care Day and Care Experienced Week, which helps equip us to identify any issues that are particularly relevant to Care Experienced people in our ongoing regulatory activities.
• We have recently worked with Who Cares? Scotland to deliver bespoke training to our staff on our role as a Corporate Parent. This had a particular focus on housing issues for those with Care Experience and took place in September 2024 and January 2025.
• We have developed a page on our intranet - ‘The Residence’, where we post useful information and articles in relation to our role as a Corporate Parent.  Information includes links to guidance and research papers.
• We are a member of the Collaborative Corporate Parenting Network organised by Who Cares? Scotland. Meetings take place on a quarterly basis involving more than 30 Corporate Parents. The network provides a space for Corporate Parents to connect, share practice and collaborate.  Our involvement in this network has led to collaboration in other projects including the Community of Practice for Siblings, which is looking at ways of keeping siblings together in care settings.
• As set out above we have been working with the Community of Practice for Siblings to identify routes to the housing sector for a future ‘New Horizons’ test of change on the theme of housing adaptation/extension/support and kinship care. This is at an early stage and our role in this work so far has been in connecting organisations in the housing sector to this work.
• We have recently worked with the Care Inspectorate to provide advice and input into the 2024 Care Inspectorate-led thematic review of services to care-experienced young people. Our contribution included advising on the focus of housing-related questions and discussion topics.
• We have recently revised our Equality Impact Assessment Guidance and processes to include ‘Care Experience’ as a protected characteristic.
• We have asked local authorities to provide information on homeless services provided to Care Experienced people via our annual homelessness conversations and engagement.
• As part of our liaison with bodies we work closely with in our regulatory role, such as the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator, Care Inspectorate and Scottish Public Services Ombudsman, we have regularly considered whether there are opportunities to contribute to the Corporate Parenting agenda through our regulation of social landlords.
• We have continued to ensure that reference is made to Corporate Parenting in the SHR Strategy and Operating Plan.
• We have reviewed ‘The Promise’ requirements for SHR following publication of Plan 24-30.

Our Corporate Parenting Plan

Appendix one sets out the actions that we will take over the next year as we develop our new Corporate Parenting Plan and Children’s Rights Report for publication in 2026. 

Children’s Rights

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) sets out the fundamental rights of all children and describes the specific rights that all children have to help fulfil their potential, including rights relating to health and education; rest, leisure and play; equality and non-discrimination; protection from exploitation and the right to be heard. The UK ratified the UNCRC in 1991.

Until recently, we have been required under part one of The Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 to publish a Children’s Rights Report on the steps we have taken to secure better or further effect within our area of responsibility of the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). We have continued to meet these duties and have published a Corporate Parenting and Children’s Rights Report every three years since 2017, the most recent of which was published in December 2023.

This requirement has recently been superseded by The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Incorporation) (Scotland) Act 2024 (UNCRC Act) which received Royal Assent on 16th January 2024 and was enacted on 16th July 2024. The Act is a landmark piece of legislation that incorporates the UNCRC into Scots law and empowers children and young people to claim their rights. The Scottish Government is the first devolved government in the world to directly incorporate the UNCRC into domestic law.

The intent behind the UNCRC Act is to deliver a proactive culture of everyday accountability for children’s rights across public services in Scotland. It requires all of Scotland’s public authorities to take proactive steps to ensure the protection of children’s rights in their decision-making and service delivery. The Act makes it unlawful for public authorities to act incompatibly with the UNCRC requirements as set out in the Act (compatibility duty). Children, young people and their representatives also have a new ability to use the courts to enforce their rights.

Section 18 of the UNCRC Act has now replaced part one section 2 of the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 with a new children’s rights reporting duty for listed public authorities. This includes a new duty to submit reports to Scottish Ministers. Both a standard report and a child friendly version must be submitted.

We are one of the 14 public authorities who are listed in the UNCRC Act.  This means that in addition to the compatibility duty mentioned above, we are also required to meet the reporting duty by publishing a Children’s Rights Report every three years.

The report should address the following four areas:

• Action taken in the previous reporting period (16th July 2024 - 31st March 2026) to ensure compatibility with UNCRC requirements as defined by the Act.
• Action taken to secure better or further effect to children’s rights.
• Actions that will be taken in the next three-year reporting period to ensure continuing compatibility with UNCRC requirements (1st April 2026-31st March 2029).
• Actions planned to secure better or further effect to children’s rights.

First reports are due as soon as practicable from the 31st of March 2026 with the reporting period beginning when the Act commenced on 16 July 2024. We are now taking actions to meet the new requirements and will publish our new report in 2026.

Our work and Children’s Rights

As set out above, we don’t provide a direct service and our engagement is mainly with organisations that we regulate.  The actions that we take are a combination of targeted regulatory activities, awareness raising, information sharing and providing advice. We also collaborate with other organisations in this work wherever possible. Taken together these proactive steps help to ensure the protection of children’s rights in the delivery of our regulatory functions.

One core element of our work is to monitor all social landlords’ service quality against the Scottish Government’s Scottish Social Housing Charter. The purpose of the Charter is to help improve the quality and value of the services that social landlords provide. The Charter’s seven sections include equalities, housing quality and maintenance, neighbourhood and community, and access to housing and support.  The Charter supports the Scottish Government’s National Outcomes on Communities, Environment and Human Rights which describe the kind of Scotland the Scottish Government wants to see. Each year we publish reports about each social landlord’s performance against the Charter. Find out more about our role in the Charter.

We monitor social landlords’ service quality through our regulatory assessments, published analysis and thematic work. We do not focus our regulatory activities specifically on children, but the figures from the Scottish Household Survey demonstrate that around a quarter of the households living in social rented homes in Scotland are families.

Although we do not target our regulatory activities specifically at children and young people, our work to monitor service quality, alongside our targeted, thematic work in areas such as homelessness shines a light on homeless and tenancy services that are important to children and young people.

Homelessness

As previously mentioned, through our regulatory work we also focus on homelessness to give us assurance that local authorities are meeting demand and providing help, advice and accommodation to vulnerable people who are or who may become homeless.

We know that there are significant numbers of households with children in temporary accommodation. Data from the Scottish Government’s Homelessness in Scotland: 2023-24 publication shows that 15,474 children (as part of 33,619 households) were assessed as homeless. It also highlights that households with children spend longer in temporary accommodation than those without, 52% of households with children spent seven months or more in temporary accommodation compared with 40% of households without children. 

In early 2023 we published a Thematic Review of our work on the services provided by councils to help people experiencing homelessness. Over the preceding two years we had engaged with every council about their homelessness services.  We did this principally to allow us to focus on their response to the challenges in delivering these services during the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Our review found that councils have been making considerable efforts in very challenging circumstances to deliver effective services for people who are or have experienced homelessness, and a number have had success in moving toward an approach with rapid rehousing at its centre. They face three major strategic challenges in providing homelessness services:

• dealing with the significant numbers of people currently in temporary accommodation;
• maintaining a sufficient supply of appropriate temporary accommodation; and
• ensuring access to the number of permanent homes that are needed.

Some councils are finding it increasingly difficult to meet these challenges, and so to fully meet their statutory duties.  There is evidence of increasing, and more widespread, breaches of statutory duties around the provision of temporary accommodation, and that some households with particular equality characteristics do not always receive a service that meets their specific needs.

Our review found considerable pressure on councils in the provision of homelessness services, and there are actions councils should and can take to respond to these challenges and to meet their statutory obligations; however, for some there is an emerging risk of systemic failure.

Our review concluded it is in this context that the Scottish Government may need to consider what further urgent measures it can take to support councils to respond to the immediate challenges they face in delivering services for people who are homeless.

In December 2023, we published a Statement which updated our thematic review. In this statement, we concluded that the risk we had identified had materialised in some councils and there is now systemic failure in the delivery of homelessness services in some areas of Scotland. We said that in in our judgement, the demands on some councils now exceed their capacity to respond and in others it soon will. We will continue to engage with the councils we believe are experiencing systemic failure. We are also engaging with local authorities where we have identified the need for improvement in the delivery of homelessness services.  Information on this engagement is set out in published Engagement Plans for each local authority.

Other work

Other actions we have taken in relation to the UNCRC requirements include:

• We are members of a number of groups looking at the implementation of the UNCRC Act in Scotland. The groups include:
• • the UNCRC Strategic Implementation Board which supports the Scottish Government make the UNCRC part of Scots law, by putting in place support for organisations, children and young people, and their families to help ensure that children’s rights are made real.
  • the UNCRC Listed Authorities Peer Support Network, facilitated by the Scottish Government, provides a supportive space where listed authorities can come together to share, learn and collaborate on joint priorities to embed a children’s human rights approach and support UNCRC implementation across their organisations.
  • The Child Rights Regulation and Improvement Action Group, facilitated by the Scottish Government, has a particular focus on the role that regulators and scrutiny bodies can play in the implementation of the UNCRC Act.

• As part of the programme of research of our National Panel of Tenants and Service Users, we have explored the experiences and priorities of people who have used local authorities’ homelessness services. We published reports with service users’ feedback in 2023 and 2024..
• As part of our annual risk assessment, we consider Gypsy/Traveller sites and landlords’ compliance with the minimum site standards set by Scottish Government and their obligations in relation to fire safety. 
• We have updated our Complaints Training Pack for staff to include information on the Child Friendly Complaints Handling Principles and Guidance as developed by the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman in 2024. We have also adapted some of our internal procedures on complaints handling to ensure that we respond and handle complaints either raised by someone who is or on behalf of someone who is under 18 years of age, using the child friendly principles and guidance.
• We have linked with the organisation NHS Education for Scotland (NES) to share an online training course on Children’s Rights with our staff.

Next Steps

Our action plan at Appendix one sets out the main actions we will undertake over the next year to continue to meet our duties, and also prepare to meet our new duties under the UNCRC (Incorporation) (Scotland) Act 2024.

We will aim to publish our next Corporate Parenting Plan and Children’s Rights as soon as is practicable after 31^st March 2026.

Governance and Reporting

Many of the actions we take in our role as a Corporate Parent and in relation to Children’s Rights are ongoing without a clear end date.  We monitor the implementation of this plan on a regular basis and report progress via our internal governance structures including to our Management Team.  We also provide updates to our Board.

Further Information

Further information on our approach to Corporate Parenting and Children’s Rights can be obtained by contacting us in the following ways:

Call us:  0141 242 5642

Email us: shr@shr.gov.scot

Mail us:

Scottish Housing Regulator

5^th Floor

220 High Street

Glasgow

G4 0QW

Action Plan

Action Plan